Later
by Ryo Hoshi
Summary: [Sequel to 'After'] Sometime later, they worry.


This is a sequal to 'After' and will not make sense if you've not read it. 

Matantei Loki Ragnarok belongs to Sakura Kinoshita, not me. No money is being made off of this work.

* * *

**Later**

_A Matantei Loki Ragnarok fanfiction by Ryo Hoshi_

She watched, worried, as her husband caressed her belly with a small sigh. When the bulge had been small, and not noticeable when she was dressed, Mayura had thought Loki would be happy. She knew he loved his family; he should have been happy. He _had_ been happy, until the doctor said she was carrying twins, and that was why she'd started showing so quickly.

He'd become downright depressing to be around when it was said that they were boys.

She found it incredibly troubling. She had no idea why he might be so troubled; Mayura thought it might have something to do with his past, but she'd decided their first night together that she'd not search on her own. As curious as she was...it was most definitely _not_ worth missing Loki's 'rewards' for her patience. Nothing could be worth that.

His sleep was not as peaceful as it'd once been, either. Before, he'd held her close, nuzzling against her and, when she had to get up while he was asleep, whimpering softly. (Not that he'd ever admit to that while awake.) Now she was being awakened at night by her husband's restlessness and cries. Mayura had tried to wake him up from his nightmare, but that was rarely successful and when she did manage it he was needy and wanting. Unlike his usual lusty self, Loki didn't seem to care at about her pleasure—or, for that matter, his own.

While awake, he was distant and preoccupied.

Almost all his friends, as well as his sons, were worried, too. She'd thought at first that it was only because of Loki's strange behavior. But...

She knew that Kaitou-san would not have been so sad. Sometime after she'd married Loki—actually, when Loki, laughing, had told her—she'd become aware of how the phantom thief felt about her. Loki had claimed, smirking, that "Freyr would be jealous of me, if he had the brains for it." At the time, she'd hit him with a pillow, as she did like Freyr—just not the way Freyr would have liked—and it'd turned into a playful fight which had ended up just playful...

Mayura giggled softly, remembering how her love had insisted the next morning that he didn't remember anything. (She was inclined to believe him, as bewildered as he was about some of the marks they'd left on each others' bodies.)

Loki lifted his head and looked into her eyes, his eyes lacking their old sparkle. "Mayura...?"

She smiled at him as best as she could. "I was just remembering something, dear." Apparently content with that answer, something he'd never been before, he lay back down.

His breathing eventually, slowly evened out into sleep.

Mayura closed her eyes and relaxed, wanting to fall asleep before he started to dream. She looked forward to when she'd given birth. When he saw she and the babies were fine—and hadn't Freya and the Norns assured her of that?—she was certain her husband would return to his usual self, which she missed so much.

ーーー

Years ago, when the first prophesies were made of Loki's...participation in Ragnarok, the Aesir had taken certain steps to prevent it. It'd not been to forbid Loki from marrying Sigyn—something which would have annoyed Loki. It would not have mattered what Sigyn was like; if she'd been forbidden to him, he'd have done everything he could to have her.

No, they'd done something much simpler. Sigyn, they knew, was not the sort of name the Jotuns would give one of their daughters—or, for that matter, the dwarves or elves—and none of the Aesir at that time would even think of marrying a _human_ woman. That meant, in their minds, that she'd have to be one of theirs, but there was no woman named 'Sigyn' among them.

They decided that there never would be one.

Loki had actually been happy, before, about this. He might—_could_—never have admitted so publicly back then, but his children were important to him. Even if he'd had no real idea how to show it, his own childhood having been miserable, he loved them.

What his sons by Sigyn would have been made to do, what would have been done with the remains... He could never imagine anything worse than being bound by those intestines; he had nightmares about that.

But now?

Now, he feared that 'Sigyn' had been merely meant to be descriptive of the woman who would be his truest lover.

Now...

Now, he could imagine worse—much, much worse.

* * *

'Sigyn' means something along the lines of 'loyal' or 'faithful'—and it doesn't turn up in the Poetic Eddas outside of when talking about Loki's binding

I'm not sure if I'll write more in this continuity. I'd like a happy ending, which right now seems pretty unlikely. If I do continue this, there will be two more stories...and the 4th shall be of a very final sort.


End file.
